The Boom Bap and Acid Rap 2016 Year End Awards, Pt. 2

Who would’ve thought that in 2016 we’d be celebrating the return of everyone’s favourite 90’s rap group? It was made even less likely when the group’s lovable enigma, Phife Dawg passed away in March. Little did we know, Q-Tip and his merry men had been cooking up an album – We Got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service – during Phife’s final months. Despite this, a lot of reasonable doubt still hung over whether the group could come close to surpassing their previous classic five albums. However, upon release this doubt was blown out the water in typical Tribe style. Calling on frequent collaborators like Busta Rhymes and Consequence helped it retain its soulful authenticity, while Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar and more were called on to give the new album a fresher, modern feel. Overall, this group breathed some retro life into 2016 and let us reminisce a little about the Tribe’s glory days. Migos and Rae Sremmurd had their time in the spotlight, but will we look back in 20 years at their work as fondly? No. For that reason, this award goes to A Tribe Called Quest.

SIDENOTE:

The worst group of the year has to be the makeshift duo of Twenty88 (Big Sean and Jhene Aiko). After some decent singles together on Sean’s previous solo album and becoming a real-life item, ‘Twenty88’ decided to lazily create some carbon copies of those singles and make a whole album of them. Brilliant. Big Sean’s lethargic imagery weighs down the overall merit of the project, while Jhene Aiko’s talk-singing is fine on a song but grating on a whole album. The full on battle-of-the-sexes theme of the LP is weak and totally swallowed any musical chemistry they might’ve been building. I really didn’t like this.